airline ticket booking trap: internet fraud behind personal information leakage

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passenger information leakage: source and spread

in 2023, the intermediate people's court of heze city, shandong province issued a ruling to disclose the online fraud of "yu mouxue". according to the case, yu mouxue used the passenger information he obtained to defraud in the name of purchasing air ticket information, which eventually caused heavy losses to the victims.

similar incidents are not uncommon. for example, on a certain app platform, some passengers received calls from people claiming to be airline staff when booking air tickets, claiming that they needed to refund the fees due to flight changes. the other party could accurately tell the passenger's flight information and personal information, and many people were deceived and suffered financial losses.

legal liability behind information leakage

the civil aviation administration of china attaches great importance to data governance and has issued a series of "7+1" smart civil aviation data governance specifications (7 industry standards and 1 information notice) to strengthen the protection of important data. in addition, the civil aviation administration actively coordinates with public security agencies to carry out relevant crackdowns and strives to curb online fraud.

from a legal perspective, the leakage of personal information is illegal, and the reasons behind it can be analyzed from multiple aspects:

• the path of personal information transfer is complex: the air ticket booking process is complicated, involving multiple parties such as passengers, online travel platforms, airlines, agents, etc. there are many information flow paths, and data leakage is also prone to occur.
• weak cybersecurity awareness: some travelers fail to judge the authenticity and legality of information when using websites and apps, resulting in illegal collection of personal information.

risks to watch out for:

• fake websites and apps: unethical websites or apps may steal users’ personal information and use it to commit fraud.
• improper information sharing: there may be links where personal information is shared between service providers, and no effective privacy protection agreement is established, resulting in data abuse.

faced with the challenge of online fraud, everyone needs to be vigilant and pay attention to protecting the security of their personal information.